Class Central Custom Lists

Overview

In this course, we'll read William Shakespeare’s Othello and discuss the play from a variety of perspectives. The goal of the course is not to cover everything that has been written on Othello. Rather, it is to find a single point of entry to help us think about the play as a whole. Our entry point is storytelling.

We'll look at the ways in which Shakespeare's characters tell stories within the play––about themselves, to themselves, and to each other. We'll consider, too, how actors, directors, composers, and other artists tell stories through Othello in performance. By focusing on storytelling, we can see how the play grapples with larger issues including power, identity, and the boundary between fact and fiction.

From lectures filmed on-location in Venice, London, and Stratford-upon Avon to conversations with artists, academics, and librarians at Harvard, students will have unprecedented access to a range of resources for "unlocking" Shakespeare's classic play.

Review
for edX's Othello's Story

5.0Based on
1 reviews

by
Karencompleted this course, spending 2 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be easy.

Good course, but if you’re looking for a scene-by-scene explanation of the play, you might be better off with the Wellesley or Adelaide moocs. Here, what shines are the analyses of different retellings of the play, in opera and drama, as well as some performance history. It’s terrific – I still have goosebumps from the interview with Keith Hamilton Cobb – but I’m not sure how much I would have gotten out of it had it been my first encounter with Othello.